Two messages resound from Tuesday's voting on school and college bonds: Californians are serious about improving education, even in difficult times. But they have deep reservations about this debtor state's capability to steward their educational investment.

How else to read this voting pattern? Prop. 55, the $12.3 billion school construction bond, barely squeaked by statewide; it even failed in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Yet look what else the Inland electorate was saying about schools: Of five Inland education bonds put to a vote, only one failed, and that (in the small Perris Union High School District) was a narrow miss.

Inland voters approved large bonds to upgrade Riverside Community College and College of the Desert. They approved a bond for San Bernardino city schools. Even in Moreno Valley, where they faced both a local school bond and the RCC bond on the same ballot, it was thumbs-up to both.

All this makes a powerful statement on behalf of this entire region. Like so many taxpayers, Inland voters are distrustful of a state that led them to the doorstep of the poorhouse. (Look what happened to Prop. 56, which would have made it easier for the Legislature to tax and spend: Statewide, it got killed.)

But there is nothing superficial, nothing casual, about the commitment of Inland communities to build themselves up. They've shown that in the past with acceptance of local transportation surtaxes and pay-as-you-grow fees. They're showing it again now. They recognize that schools are a critical component of that improvement.

The success of the two college bonds was especially affirming. The state's budget problems mean enrollment cuts at UC and state university campuses, and it falls to the community colleges to step up and meet that local need. The critical task of retooling workers for modern jobs increasingly rests with the two-year colleges, as well. Now, districts in western Riverside County and the desert will be positioned to meet that need for the next decade.

Inland communities couldn't have made a smarter, more direct investment in their own families, and their own economy, than they made Tuesday.